Tokyo Journal; Red Light 'Scouts' and Their Gullible Discoveries

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

Published: November 15, 2001

TOKYO, Nov. 14—
By dusk, the scouts are as thick on the pavements in Kabukicho as bugs outside a brightly lit room on a summer night.

With their deep tans, shaggy hair and dark suits, these men ply the rush-hour crowds, stealthily approaching young women outside the world's busiest train station to see if they can be enticed to work in what is by reputation the richest red-light district anywhere.

''If a girl agrees to visit a club, I get $50, if she agrees to work there, I get $100, and if she proves to be really good, I'll get a much bigger bonus still,'' said Izumi Ryo, an 18-year-old scout for the area's sex clubs who fairly bragged about his recruitment successes in a society where modesty and wariness of strangers are cardinal virtues.

''I don't have a 100 percent success rate,'' he said. ''But there are lots of women who get sucked in, usually because they have debts or they want to buy the latest fashions.''

The Kabukicho district was briefly on the front pages in Japan in September, when the worst fire in decades swept through a multistory building crammed with sex clubs and gambling parlors, killing 44. Many of the deaths were in a fourth-floor club called Super Loose, whose specialty was lap dances by young women dressed in schoolgirl uniforms.

During several days of coverage, the news media copiously mourned the loss of life, and they denounced the death-trap conditions in a district where crowded clubs are stacked one atop the other in tiny buildings. A few weeks later, though, with business back to normal, fire swept through another building, killing several customers and injuring others.

But there was little discussion of the sex industry itself, which is often said to generate more income than the defense budget, or of the tens of thousands of young women who are drawn to places like this one, and to smaller sex districts that thrive openly in every Japanese city of any size.

Prostitution is illegal in Japan, but enforcement of the law is almost nonexistent, and nowhere is there talk of a Times Square-style cleanup.

At 26, Satomi Uwasa is already a wizened veteran of the sex business, and as she begins looking for a way out of it, she is beginning to understand how difficult moving on can be.

''I was scouted by nampa five years ago on the streets of Shibuya,'' she said, using the term for the propositioning of strangers on the street. ''They told me I could make good money doing part-time work. I had only 300 yen in my pocket, and they said that if I agreed to be photographed topless, I would get 10,000 yen,'' or about $85.

Ms. Uwasa, who went on to a career in X-rated movies, accepted immediately. ''Girls accept this kind of work all by themselves,'' she said. ''I don't think people are dragged into it. It is not that exploitative.''

Then, after a moment's reflection, she added: ''It's true there's always a preference for newcomers, and there's always a surplus of them, too. In this business it's hard being a veteran.''

Yuriko Abe, another veteran of the district, spoke even more ruefully of the way the industry pulls in young women, works them intensely and spits them out.

''In Japan, it is difficult for a woman to find work after 30, and it's no different in the sex business,'' said the no-nonsense 23-year-old, who said she has sex with four or five customers a day. ''Sure it can be disgusting. But once you're in this business, the only hope is to save money for your future, otherwise you've just wasted your life.

''In the meantime, the real difficulty is having a normal relationship with someone. You either have to quit the business, or live a lie.''

The Kabukicho district's area, a mere 700 yards by 700 yards wide, is deceptively small, given how tightly packed together the clubs are. And each club seems to outdo the other in the employment of euphemisms.

There are kyabakura, or cabaret clubs, that sport lap dancing. Esthe clubs and pink salons, which often mean sex massage. Finally there are imekura, or image clubs, which involve all manner of sexual role-playing, like the use of schoolgirl uniforms, a particular favorite in Japan.

''We try to set a stage for men's imaginations,'' said Takamitsu Sato, the manager at one thriving Kabukicho. ''The environment could be a mock office, a classroom, a doctor's office. In my club sexual harassment is the most popular theme, because it is very easy for them to imagine.''

Inside the tiny club, one room was designed like a subway car, and the playacting there involves molesting female strangers on the train, a problem that has become so serious that some train lines have recently introduced women-only cars.

With so much competition among clubs, the turnover among women in the sex industry is high and demand for new recruits strong, despite Japan's persistently anemic economy. In addition to nampa, young women are drawn to the industry by popular movies and by a growing number of magazines that are full of advertisements for jobs in clubs like these. One slick monthly, Maru Maru, has hundreds of pages listing openings. One of the season's big movie hits, meanwhile, is Platonic Sex, a romanticized tale of a girl's recruitment into the sex industry.

With an air of glamour maintained by media like these, many young women gravitate to Kabukicho entirely of their own accord, eagerly hoping for what they dreamily conceive of as a life of adventure and even celebrity.

Mika, a giggly 16-year-old dressed in a tiny miniskirt and clinging pink sweater, seemed one such girl as she sat on the steps of McDonald's with her teenage friends soaking up attention from men passing by. ''We can't get into the clubs yet because we are underage,'' she said, sounding a bit drunk. ''I can't wait until I can though. It seems like so much fun!''

Photos: Men in search of entertainment in the Kabukicho red-light district of Tokyo passed a bar that featured women dressed as schoolgirls. A scout, below, tried to recruit a woman leaving the nearby Shinjuku Station. (Photographs by Stuart Isett/Gamma, for The New York Times)